


a long horizon

by dirty_diana



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Canon Compliant, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, First Time, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Precognition, Force philosophy, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Mood Swings, Mpreg, Parent Kylo Ren, Pining, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, The Force, redemption is a strong word so it's not that but Kylo Ren is trying his best here, the Force as feedback loop, the Force does like to knock people up that's canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 10:31:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18658645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirty_diana/pseuds/dirty_diana
Summary: A year ago, Kylo Ren became Supreme Leader of the First Order. When he gets an inconvenient surprise gift from the Force, Kylo Ren will do everything he can to stay alive, and to grant the child the destiny he's seen in his visions. Even if that means asking the Rebellion for help.And coming face to face with Rey. A lot is about to change. Maybe Kylo Ren most of all.





	a long horizon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RedRumRaver](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRumRaver/gifts).



> I sort of don't know where this came from! But I just got into this ship and was very inspired by the mentions in the request of 1) the baby being the next chosen one 2) enemies to lovers. Hope you enjoy.
> 
> Thanks to anoyo for the beta.

Kylo Ren did his best to ensure that he was only defending, not attacking. The small cadre of Rebel soldiers before him numbered barely half a dozen. The few stormtroopers guarding this poorly manned Mid-Rim supplies depot had been disarmed during the Rebels’ arrival, leaving the Rebels scrambling when he'd emerged in their midst. Scattered blaster shots flew towards him. Raising his hands as if in defense, Kylo deflected them one by one. Armed with the Force, his training and his lightsaber, he could easily have mowed these few, disorganised Rebels down in the space of a few breaths.

It would have been a natural end to this fight. He was being shot at. The strong survived. But his mother wouldn't like it, he reminded himself, and neither would the girl. She was why he was here.

"Stop." Kylo could feel himself growing irritated, and he did his best to clamp down on the feeling before it drowned him. He felt out with the Force, and yanked. A cascade of blasters rained to the floor, some with their owners still grasping their triggers. The lead soldier ducked low, scrambling forward to regain hold of his pistol, his human eyes huge and terrified underneath his helmet.

"Stop!" he repeated. His voice reverberated through the room, cutting into the silence of the sudden forced ceasefire. "I surrender."

The soldier froze in shock. His voice trembled with trepidation when he spoke, but he faced Kylo squarely, still eyeing his weapon where it lay a few feet ahead of him. "You, ah. What?"

He made his voice sure, smooth, as if he were issuing orders to underlings on the bridge on any perfectly average day. "I surrender. You've captured Kylo Ren." Kylo scrutinised the Rebel soldier's dirty clothing. The minutiae of Rebel insignia escaped him. "Sergeant," he guessed, then continued when there was no contradiction. "You know who I am. You'll need to bring me to your superiors at once."

"Aha, hmmn." The human vocalised abstract noises, stalling for time as they knelt to the ground and picked up their pistol, keeping their eyes trained on their unexpected prisoner. Kylo held perfectly still. It was a gamble, but necessary, and no Rebel was likely to try to shoot a helpless man mid-surrender. Not, at least, with so many witnesses. It would contravene their supposed ideals. Kylo watched the rest of the sergeant's team, all hanging on the words of the exchange in rattled silence.

"In that case, I'll need the sword," the Rebel sergeant said finally.

Kylo breathed out, hard. He should have seen this coming. But he hadn't considered the need for parting with his lightsaber when he'd conceived this plan, and he found himself reluctant. "I'd rather not," he admitted.

The man shifted, discomfited. "Well, it's just that I can't really consider it a surrender if you insist on hanging onto it. Sir."

Kylo sighed. Steeled himself. "Fine."

He powered down his lightsaber, and tossed it to the ground. "Be careful," he admonished with a growl as the sergeant hurried forward to pick up the weapon with shaking fingers.

"Got it. You got any other weapons on you that you want to tell us about?"

"I am a weapon."

It was a statement of fact, but the sergeant's eyes opened in shock for a moment as if Kylo had issued a threat. After a beat, he nodded. "Ya, sure. I mean the kind you carry?"

"None."

"We'll also need to use, ah. Handcuffs."

Submitting himself to the same treatment as a common spice thief went against all Kylo's instincts. From the wary way the Rebel sergeant eyed every movement, he knew it too. Kylo held his hands out in front of him as docilely as he could manage. "Go ahead."

"Gev!" The sergeant barked at the nearest soldier, gesturing towards Kylo. "Put the cuffs on him."

"Rilp! Why me?"

Sergeant Rilp rolled his eyes without breaking off his gaze from Kylo's form. "Because you're kriffin' closest, ain't you?"

The Rebel shot back with something unintelligible. An Outer Rim patois, at best guess. The Rebel sighed, inching towards Kylo Ren. Kylo could sense the fear rolling off them, antennae arced towards him, tracking for danger.

"Hands out," they said. "Don't try anything."

Kylo was silent as he submitted to being restrained. He couldn't help flinching when the being's hands hit his shoulders, then his sleeves and his waist, down to his boots, testing gently but firmly for hidden weapons. It was an efficient, brusque, invasion. Kylo couldn't remember the last time he'd been touched by anyone, even in an off-hand manner such as this.

"Ya, nothing, sergeant."

Kylo said nothing. Sergeant Rilp studied him, eyes bright. Realising, perhaps for the first time, that he really had captured the infamous Kylo Ren.

*

The real difficulties became clear when they returned to the Rebels' ship. A small transport-class vessel, no bigger than the Falcon. Nearly weaponless, more than likely. It was, Kylo Ren thought, a miracle that the Rebels still existed, if this was the extent of the space-going craft they could procure.

"I'm afraid, ah." Sergeant Rilp began to stumble over his tongue, then coughed and spoke again. "I'm afraid we'll have to sedate you."

Kylo stared at him.

"It's just that it's protocol. For transporting captives. Especially to the base."

It was logical, Kylo supposed. "Procedures have to be followed."

"Ya, 'fraid so." 

They strapped him to a jumpseat with exaggerated care. Through a doorway a few feet away, he could hear the rest of the Rebel crew preparing for takeoff. A Twi'lek, blue-green lekku partially covered by her Rebel rags, unpacked needles and autodosage intravenous units from her medkit. "I'm Vana," she said, as she rolled up Kylo's left sleeve and began to prepare his skin for the injection. Unexpectedly, he was being touched again, her fingers moving gently across the inseam of his elbow as she counted out the steps of the procedure to herself. 

Kylo scowled at her. "Don't you have a bot to handle this?"

"You're lucky we have the right sedatives on board, to be honest. Didn't come prepared to take POWs." Her Galactic Basic was sweet and melodic, incongruously chipper given the circumstances. "You have any allergies?"

"No."

"Good. You should just get sleepy like a kitten in a second, but if something feels wrong just now, you say something. I'll be monitoring your stats the whole way."

She had suspicious eyes like all the others. Still she was genuinely trying to ease his worry, Kylo realised. He nodded, watching the needle slide into his vein. "Let's just get this over with."

If the Twi'lek answered, Kylo Ren never heard it. The world faded to mute grey, then absolutely nothing at all.

*

Kylo woke up in a bed. It was a cheap, rickety cot, with rough blankets pulled up around his waist. He blinked as the wall and ceiling slowly came into focus.

He was in a small room. They had landed on a planet or moon, judging by the absence of engine sound, but that was the extent of guesses he could make about his location.

The door swished open. The familiar Twi'lek stepped through, followed by a medical droid with blinking blue and red optics. Two more beings stepped in with her, tall guards that stood at attention, framing the doorway. He reached out casually in the Force to brush against the minds of the nearest lifeforms. No, not two guards. Five, with three more outside. 

"I wasn't expecting to see you again," he said to Vana.

Her lekku twitched slightly in a graceful Twi'lek shrug. "If you're missing the higher ranks, they're having a meeting to decide what to do with you."

"I haven't been executed yet," Kylo pointed out, then frowned as he realised he had spoken out loud. The sedatives must be lingering in his system.

"Well," Vana said as she watched the droid roll up to the side of Kylo's bed. "That's one of the options under discussion, to be honest with you."

Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order, dead at the hands of the Rebellion. It would have made a good story for a group desperately in need of a victory. But he had sabacc cards left to play, if things came to it. He would not let them kill him, not before the current contest had played out in full.

"Please don't break that," Vana said suddenly, her voice thin through the fog of Kylo's gathering rage. Abruptly, Kylo came back to focus. He looked to where she pointed, to see that he had grabbed hold of one of the meddroid's metal gripping tools and was squeezing the durasteel appendage with the weight of the Force guiding his fingers. "Med-A-6 needs his hands to work."

Kylo looked at Vana. She'd taken a step backwards. Out of reach of his hands, though not so far he couldn't use the Force to wrap a vise around her windpipe or break her neck. He said nothing.

"The Commander wanted to keep you sedated," Vana added. "I said it wasn't going to be safe for a human to be under so long, and I wouldn't do it. And the Jedi didn't seem to think there would be much point to restraining you."

"But you'd like me to try and behave," Kylo guessed quietly.

Fear still threaded Vana's voice. She managed a small nod. "Yes, please."

It was a strange request, in its way. Something that no one had asked of him in years. His mind ran back to the Twi'lek's words. The Jedi.

Rey. Now that he'd opened himself to the trail of the Force as it pulsed through every being on the base, he thought he could feel her presence. Strong as always, enough to draw his attention without trying.

He wondered where she fell on the issue of whether he should die.

Vana nodded at him. "Thanks. Med-A-6 and I are going to run a few basic tests now."

The meddroid's display flashed a message at him in Basic. _Please hold still._

*

After Vana left, he fell back into sleep, the last trace of the sedative dragging him back into a restless abyss.

He woke with a start. His cell door was open. He didn't recognise the man who stepped through, waving off the guards that tried to follow. He was small, dark-haired, wearing a flight jacket and a hard expression.

"If he tries to kill me, then that'll be all the information we need," he said to the guards as he dismissed them. "Won't it."

It wasn't the noise of the door or the footsteps that had woken him, Kylo realised. It was the anger that the man carried him, projected like a spike towards him despite the fact that Kylo could detect no trace of ability with the Force. Kylo couldn't help opening himself to the sensation, to the blunt hammer of the man's anger. It was refreshing.

"You can call me Commander Dameron."

"Can I?" Kylo murmured. He was rewarded by another wave of anger, rawer than the first.

Dameron glared. Like Vana he'd brought a droid with him, but unlike Med-A-6 this one had been designed without any regard to aesthetics. It was a bulky thing, painted entirely black and standing half as high as Dameron. It rolled into the room on heavy wheels, and beeped its readiness.

"Yeah," Dameron said to it, "Okay. This is session one. All recording functions active. All testing functions active."

"Active," the droid agreed. The Basic speech sounds it made were deep and distinctly artificial. "Session 1. Subject is human male. Baseline established. Please proceed."

Dameron nodded. He tucked a loose hand inside his worn flight jacket and leaned against the faded painted wall. It was nearly a parody of careless confidence, like something found in a holovid.

"Let's start with something easy. What's your name?" Dameron asked.

"Kylo Ren." 

"Of the First Order."

"Yes."

"Explain the circumstances which led to your capture," Dameron said in a gruff command.

"I was on M'klin. Which you already know." Impatience flickered in him, making his words short.

"Why?" Dameron asked him. "How did you know our forces would be on M'klin?"

"You've been making guerilla strikes in outposts in the Mid-Rim for months." Easy targets, ones barely worth the cost it takes to defend them. Kylo shrugged. "Hoping to get some tactical value out of being a nuisance, I assume. M'klin was on a list of likely next targets generated by our computers. It fit the criteria."

Dameron's face darkened at Kylo's casual insult of the Rebel tactics. "How many potential targets were on that list?"

"A dozen."

"So how did you pick M'klin?" Dameron pressed again.

"I just did."

"You're saying you got lucky," Dameron said, drawl ladened with scepticism. "Or unlucky?"

No Force user really believed in luck as other beings conceived of it. He wasn't going to argue the details with Dameron. "Where is…" Kylo paused, then began again. "Where is my mother?"

That brought fresh colour to Dameron's vexed face. "The General won't be coming. We've agreed that this conversation needs someone that's less partial."

An interrogation, then, with Dameron's methods likely to get more strident as things went on. Kylo Ren glanced at the droid. It rolled slightly to the the left, as if to capture a better angle of footage.

"Rey." It didn't quite manage to sound like a question. Kylo's throat was dry.

"She won't be coming either," Dameron snapped impatiently. "Tell me why you're here. I know you weren't actually taken by surprise by our men. You sought us out. Capitulated. Tell me why."

Kylo lingered over his next words. "This would be easier to explain to my mother. Or to Rey."

Dameron's mouth curled up at the sound of Rey's name in Kylo's mouth for a second time, teeth exposed in an unmistakable snarl. "Because they'd be easier for you to manipulate?"

That made Kylo's blood run hot--as if his mother had ever had a soft spot for him that couldn't be overridden by her overblown sense of duty--but he stayed on track. "Because they understand something of the Force."

"Try me." 

Kylo hesitated. There'd been, until now, no need to say the words out loud. "There is a child. Growing within me."

Dameron stared at him. "Did you just say that you're pregnant?"

Kylo nodded. He watched the pilot turning the information over. Contemplating the impossibility of it. 

"General Organa never mentioned that you'd ever been anything other than, ah. Male."

"General Organa," Kylo stumbled over the title, pretended he wasn't choking on it, "talks about me a lot?"

Dameron didn't reply.

"My reproductive organs are less than relevant," Kylo snapped. "I told you the Force was involved."

Dameron's eyes were a hard, dark mark of his disbelief. "And you expect me to believe this, that your magic powers can do this. That this isn't some First Order trick--"

"It's happened before," Kylo said, cutting him off with a soft rasp. "My mother would know."

Leia Organa was the still-breathing descendant of the evidence of the Force's power to create. This conversation was a waste of time, Kylo thought into a disdainful silence.

"Estimate truthfulness," Dameron instructed the droid brusquely.

The droid's processors whirred. "Estimating. Likelihood of truthfulness estimated at ninety-three percent."

Dameron glared at him.

"I'll submit to any tests," Kylo said.

He'd already undergone a physical examination, though Kylo knew it was done less out of concern than fear he'd brought a pathogen to the cramped base, or sustained injuries that would kill him before they could decide what to do with him. The meddroid had found little to complain of, issuing standard inoculations and pronouncing him healthy. Certainly it had not bothered to test him for something so impossible.

"You'd like that, I guess," Dameron said. "Stall for time while we chase tall tales."

"It will be easy enough to prove or disprove. And this conversation can't go any further until you believe me." Kylo's hands curled into fists. He reached into the Force reflexively, something he'd been doing more and more in the past weeks. Checking for the sign that he already knew would be there. The flicker of life reached back for him, easy and strong inside him, uncowed in the face of Dameron's doubt.

 _Yes_ , he sent his words towards it. Something else he'd been doing for weeks, though he know the child was not yet aware enough to understand him as anything other than the nearest presence in the Force. _You are here, and so am I._

Dameron exhaled loudly, a mixture of anger and frustration. He dragged his hands across his face, looking down at the droid. "End session one."

"Ended," the droid chirped back. "Recording functions halted."

*

After that it took less than an hour for Rey to burst through the door of his prison cell. Like Dameron she too dismissed the guards, choosing to stand opposite him in the small room alone. Kylo drew himself into a sitting position on the cot. He met her eyes as she glared daggers at him. She was wearing a worn brown flightsuit, her long hair tied in multiple knots.

Kylo's eyes drank her in. He fought to hold onto the anger that would ready him to defend himself against her, if necessary.

It had been so long since he'd seen her.

"If the First Order has sent you to finish us off, you should have come up with a better cover story. This one stinks like a Hutt's butt." She was raising her voice, shouting at him without greeting.

Her passion was soothing and irritating in turns. "I wouldn't lie to you. You know that."

She took a surprised step back at that. "Why are you really here?" she asked.

"If my words disturb you," he said, ignoring the question, "you have other tools. Reach out in the Force. Tell me what you feel."

"Into your mind?" Rey's eyes flashed with anger. "I won't subject myself to the dark side."

Kylo repressed a sigh. She simplified everything, this girl, until it bore little resemblance to the accurate state of things. "You won't need to invade my mind. Tell me how many Force signatures you sense in this room."

Rey's eyes still lit with hostility. "This is a trick."

"I didn't come halfway across the galaxy to argue with you!" he yelled, the lightning crack of his temper uncurling without warning. His scar seemed to ache. "Tell me what you sense."

Rey looked at him for a moment. She hunched her shoulders, her face furrowed in concentration.

He had underestimated the weight of his invitation. That was clear the minute she connected to the Force and by extension, to him. Her power was everywhere, as immense as it had been a year ago. More trained in some ways, yet still wild. It pushed and pulled at him at once, wrapping around the edges of his consciousness. 

It felt like a weight on him, fighting his entire being, instead of the dizzying rush of power that he was used to. The light side. Kylo fought a shiver. He braced himself, suppressing the instinct to fight back.

The touch held no edge, merely curiosity. Rey's attention shifted abruptly. He watched as confusion crossed her face, as she probed the subject of her attention more closely.

She'd felt the baby.

Her gaze followed her senses, moving to his belly, then flickered back to his face. "How?"

Kylo spread his empty hands. He had no answers. "All I know is that I woke up nearly six months ago with this inside me. That it must be the will of the Force."

Rey giggled. "I'm sorry," she said, at the shifting expression on Kylo's face. "It's just, kriff. That must have annoyed you pretty badly."

"It was unexpected," he agreed without heat. 

"Okay. I believe you. I still don't know what that has to do with why you're here."

"I had nowhere else I could go." The admission didn't hurt.

"You are the Supreme Leader." In her mouth his rank sounded as low as dirt. "I would think you could go wherever you want."

"Would you." He examined her, contemplating the best line of explanation. "You've dreamed of the other Knights of Ren."

Her eyes widened. "How did you know that?"

"Because they've dreamed of you." He paused. "They still follow Snoke's teachings."

"What does that mean?" Rey demanded, her fingers fluttering impatiently on her hips.

"It means they believe that power is the only honest goal."

"Hmmn." Rey's deep eyes lit with a glimmer of understanding. "And you went and declared yourself an emperor."

Kylo growled. "I'm not talking about titles. I'm talking about true power. One who trusts in the dark side must either hold it, or hold it in balance."

Her face cleared in understanding. "You're talking about the baby."

He inclined his head a fraction in a yes. "You felt it."

"I felt its strength. Yeah."

"The old emperor felt the same, when my grandfather was born. As Snoke did with me." Rey's expression melted slightly at that. Kylo grit his teeth. He wouldn't be pitied. He continued. He could not explain how he knew the rest, only that he did. The knowledge carried the certainty of a Force vision. "Leaving such a tool within the Knights' reach would have become a problem. For me."

"Kriff, it's not a tool. It's a baby."

A bubble of dark amusement bloomed inside him. "We're all tools, Rey. Even you."

If the room had been gated by a primitive style of door, maneuvered on hinges rather than hydraulics, she might have slammed it behind her. As it was she simply twirled away from him and stomped her way out. Her footfalls echoed even after she was gone.

*

The knights had been on errands when Snoke died, scattered to different parts of the galaxy. Snoke in his assuredness had forsaken the rules of the Sith. When Kylo put together what little he could of his grandfather's allegiance to the Sith beliefs, when Darth Vader came to him in meditation, one thing was obvious. Those who followed the dark side could try to exist together, but sooner or later the balance would shift. Snoke's blind spot had been believing that his power was absolute. Kylo Ren was Supreme Leader now, and he wouldn't make the mistakes of those before him.

Challenge was inevitable. Yet he hadn't expected this. He didn't like it, scurrying to hide under cover. But his Force vision had been clear, and as days passed the knights' intentions loomed in every dark corner of the Finalizer.

He'd been running out of time.

*

Improbably, the Twi'lek was angry with him. She came through the door holding the large medkit, the medical droid rolling obediently behind her.

"You! You could have said something."

Kylo blinked. No one in the First Order was brave enough to argue with him, as a general rule. Whatever fear the Twi'lek still held for him, it came second to her prickle of irritation. "Excuse me?"

"That you were pregnant. You could have said something!"

He was surprised. "You believe me." 

"Of course I believe you," Vana said firmly. Her lilting voice rose in volume to underscore her words. "Your iron is low, your oxytocin is high, and frankly you're looking a little, ah. Round. In the middle."

Kylo scowled down at the slight swell of his midsection.

"I just didn't think to assume gestation cycle in a human male. I should have remembered the Jedi thing."

"I'm not a Jedi," Kylo said automatically.

Vana tilted her head, both her eyelids and her lekku lowering in a Twi'lek expression of confusion. The different categories of Force users probably meant nothing to her, he realised. "Whatever. You should have told me you were pregnant. Especially before I pumped you full of sedatives."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because they're contraindicated in pregnancy? In case they harm the baby." Vana blinked again as she explained.

Kylo gestured impatiently. "I mean, what difference would it have made?"

She was silent for a moment. "Maybe none. But I'd rather have all the information I need from now on, if it's okay with you. Any other medical issues you'd like to tell me about?"

Sometimes dead men keep me awake at night, Kylo thought. "None," he said aloud.

"Good. Can you lift your shirt?" At Kylo's sideways look, she added, "Commander wants a picture of the baby. He doesn't really believe you."

That had been clear.

"And I'd like to do a checkup on the baby's health. I'm guessing you haven't had one of those yet."

Kylo shook his head. The tests hadn't been possible, not without bringing underlings he couldn't trust into his secret. The risk hadn't seemed necessary, when he could sense the strength of the baby's life thread in the Force.

"Okay, well, it'll be something new for all of us," Vana said.

Med-A-6 beeped in agreement. 

*

He could feel her. It took two days before she came to visit him in person. It was a relief in a way, to no longer have to brace himself for their meeting, imagining what her first words of admonishment would be. He stood to face her, raising his chin high. She wore her brown Rebel uniform. There was more grey in her hair than the last time that he'd seen her, and deep lines of sadness around her eyes.

"Hello, Ben."

His limbs felt stiff. "General." 

His mother pressed her lips together, saying nothing of the formal address. "I hear congratulations are in order," she said instead.

He was quiet.

"May I?" She reached out a hand towards him. Kylo nodded, bracing himself against the uninvited feeling of alarm that swept over him as she approached. Too late, he realised she hadn't been asking permission for a physical touch.

Her presence in the Force was untrained, tentative, yet strong and unmistakably her. He could feel the moment when she touched the baby. Her eyes widened. A wave of sentiment washed across her face.

"Oh. Ben."

"Yes," he agreed simply. In the face of the baby's undeniable presence in the Force, there wasn't much else to say.

He waited. His mother looked at him for a long time with an inscrutable expression, before she spoke again. "Why are you here?"

"The child--" he began.

Leia Organa shook her head, giving him the hard look that had cowed so many. "No, Ben. Why are you _here_?" She stressed the last word, gesturing around the room. 

"I suppose I thought you'd be willing to receive your grandchild." His voice was trembling, against the knowledge that she might reject him now, again, with so much at stake. Sour anger rose like bile.

"And you?" his mother asked. "You've presented yourself to the heart of the Resistance, such as it is. They'll want to try you. The likely sentence would be death."

She did not say we, Kylo noticed. "I suppose. If they can hold me here."

His mother sighed. "Yes, that may prove difficult, I suppose. And you'll do what after that? As a fugitive from the Rebellion, and the First Order. With a baby in tow."

Kylo frowned at her. His plan had been so clear to him, when he'd climbed into a ship in the bowels of the Finalizer, and it was a surprise to realise it might not be clear to others. "The child will stay here. I'll return to the First Order."

"You just told me you feared them," his mother argued without missing a beat.

"I fear no one!" Kylo roared. A spark of the Force flew through him, unbidden. He forced himself to release it. "I fear no one," he repeated, quieter now, the ghost of a whisper. "And without the child, the knights will have less reason to fear me." Balance would be restored. He knew there was no point explaining to someone who had never studied the Force at all, let alone the lessons of the dark side.

"That easy, huh?" 

Kylo flinched at the question. As if any of this had been easy. The sadness in her voice was an irritant, working its way under his skin. "Would you prefer I hadn't come?" 

"And if I say yes?" she asked him. There was emotion in her voice, ruthlessly kept in check as she faced him. "Would that make me a monster, when you know what you've done?"

Monster. Kylo swallowed a hollow laugh, the sound tightening his throat. "She is connected to the light side of the Force. I feel that already. You won't have to be afraid of her."

His mother's familiar eyes stared at him. She did not bother to deny that she'd been afraid. Of his easy connection to the dark side, of Kylo himself. She said nothing in response to his words at all. "It isn't safe, you know. With the Rebellion. Or do you plan to stop dropping bombs on us once you're back with the First Order?"

He hesitated. "I left in a hurry. Maybe I didn't consider. Everything."

"That's becoming distinctly obvious, Ben." Leia Organa sighed. Her presence in the Force flared another moment as it had before, reaching towards the baby. His mother nodded, as if she was coming to a decision.

"Medic Vana estimates the baby will be fully grown in a little less than three months."

"Yes. She told me." Vana's report of the child's health had been long and mostly superfluous, but that much she'd been clear about, alongside determining the child's sex.

"So we have that long. They won't want to sentence you before the baby is born. Perhaps you'll come up with a plan that might actually work, in all that time."

There was a quiet gleam in her eyes. Kylo realised that improbably, his mother was teasing him. He was struck silent. "Yes," he said.

*

Maybe his plan was incomplete, he reflected later. But in truth, neither the knights nor Hux and the generals were likely to come to a functioning understanding in a short three months' time. For now, retaking the First Order fleet was the least of Kylo's worries. 

In the meantime he'd have to adjust to being so close to his mother, for the first time in years. It was uncomfortable in ways Kylo could neither define or understand. 

Rey's nearness was worse. It had been a year since they'd first connected in the Force, since she'd come to visit him on the Supremacy, since their connection had been destroyed. By the death of Snoke, or by her refusal to take his hand. He still wasn't sure which. But the Battle of Crait had ended, and she'd been gone.

But he'd opened himself to her to prove his story, and just like that, their connection seemed to be capriciously reasserting itself. Kylo paced his small cell, finding in unexpected moments that he could sense her. Not just her presence. Her mind would be suddenly clear to him, for a handful of moments before he traced a feeling of irritation. Then she would abruptly withdraw from the Force, leaving him alone.

Again.

*

In captivity, the time wore on. Kylo Ren's room was bare, with no computer to distract him or tell him the time. He guessed the hours by the arrival of his meal trays, but it was disorienting and imprecise. Commander Dameron arrived daily, with no set schedule, to continue their previous conversation.

"Begin session nine," Dameron said to his droid. He leaned against the wall, limbs arranged in his usual pose of casual resilience. "Tell me about the list."

Kylo was silent. He sat on the edge of his cot, a seat too low for his height, and said nothing. 

"Is that how it's gonna be today?" Dameron challenged him. "Because trust me, I've got much better things to do that be in here playing games with you."

"I'm not keeping you," Kylo murmured. 

A flush of irritation rose up Dameron's neck. "Look, no one wants to graduate to advanced interrogation methods. Not with the, you know." Dameron had staunchly refused to acknowledge the baby, except in grudging generalities. "But if you keep stalling, then maybe you force my hand."

Threats were an element of this game that he understood. This strange worry about the baby coming from beings from he'd never met was something that he didn't know how to respond to, even as he'd counted on it during his escape. He said nothing.

Dameron sighed heavily into the silence. "The list of potential Rebel targets. You said you used it to find us."

"Yes."

"Which other locations were on it?"

"I don't remember," Kylo said.

"You didn't bring it with you?"

Kylo looked at Dameron in confusion. Surely all his confiscated belongings had been searched for hidden data by now. "I didn't need it. But the First Order doesn't have it either, if that's what you're worried about. I destroyed it."

Dameron shifted positions, his clothing rustling as he moved. It was a tell that Kylo had given him an answer he hadn't been expecting. "Why would you do that?"

"To cover my tracks. I also erased the computer routines that processed it, and destroyed the droid that delivered the data. You may have time before Hux thinks to try and recreate it."

"Right, send us flying straight into a trap. You'd like that."

He suppressed the urge to call the man an idiot, speaking simply. "Your safety and my safety are the same. Right now."

"So you say," Dameron responded cynically. He shook his head, moving onto the next topic. "What else might General Hugs be up to that should worry us?"

The questions continued like that for some time. Kylo lapsed back into moody silence. Eventually Dameron seemed to decide that he had made as much progress that day as he was likely to, and broke off. He sauntered out, the droid trailing behind him.

*

Alone, the persistent beat of his own thoughts was inescapable. Snoke had encouraged Kylo's small outlets for his bursts of mood equally as often as he'd derided them. Here, there was no reason to stop his feelings surging from moment to moment.

He didn't need the Force to throw the small service droid across the room. He kicked it with his feet, and the droid flew into the wall, his meal tray sailing with it. The droid began to beep in stunned, indignant incoherence.

All of his guards burst through the door with barely a second's delay. Five blasters trained on him as all the beings shouted in his direction. The lead guard, a Trandoshan, finally seemed to recognise that there was no further attack coming.

He looked at the destroyed bot, still noisily signalling its distress. He gestured to one of the other Rebels. "Pick that up. You, no more trouble tonight. Or we tie you down." He waved his blaster in Kylo's direction.

The meal tray wasn't replaced. He went to bed hungry.

*

When the door slid open hours later, he was expecting Dameron as part of the usual routine. Or Vana, who'd visited twice to take careful observations of the baby's health.

He wasn't expecting the soft, stern face that popped up over his bed.

"Rey. You're here." He sat up in a hurry, clearing his throat.

"Yes." She stared at him for a while, fiddling with a lock of hair that had fallen loose. "I've been asked to remind you to try and keep your temper in check. While you're here."

He made a dismissive noise in his throat, looking back at her.

"I know. It's not what you do. With the dark side." She made a face as if she were tasting something foul. "But try and remember that most of the people on this base would love an excuse to cut you down. Baby or no."

The words didn't sound like her. "Dameron didn't send you," he said in realisation.

"No. Leia did. I know you can," she added. "Control your temper. If you wanted to."

"You don't know that." He'd wanted to believe that she'd known him. But she'd turned down his offer, leaving him a year to consider how much of the closest parts of their connection had been an illusion. 

Her eyes narrowed. Kylo spread his hands, gesturing to the close four walls. "If you treat me like a caged animal, you can't be surprised when I act like one."

She blinked, considering his words for a moment without arguing. "Fine. What would make your stay more comfortable? Holovids?" She waited. The question was serious, he realised in surprise.

"My lightsaber," he answered finally.

She tapped her foot, exasperated. "Try something I can actually get for you."

"Not for escaping," he explained. "I need the exercise."

Rey blinked at him as she processed this, then nodded once. "I may be able to swing something like that." She took a breath, pausing. She was waiting for something.

"Thank you."

Her expression relaxed a fraction as she looked at him. "You're welcome."

*

Whatever negotiations Rey needed to do with her fellow Rebels didn't take long. The next morning--Kylo guessed it was the next morning, from the cup of lukewarm caf that had been sitting on his most recent meal tray--found them pacing a path in the hallways outside his cell. 

Five Rebels, his freshly changed guards for the day, trailed nervously several paces behind them. The walls of the corridors were not entirely manmade, Kylo realised as he studied them. The built wall was embedded in a natural formation, entirely exposed in parts. Dark veins of natural minerals sparkled in the solid rock. They were underground, then, perhaps deep in a mountain.

Rey kept pace with him. Her lightsaber hung at her belt, yet she seemed perfectly casual, her fingers laced behind her back.

Their path was noticeably absent of other beings. Were the few that he'd already seen all that the Rebellion had been able to add to their cause, even after a year? If that was true, they weren't likely to survive another.

Rey glared at him, as if she could read his thoughts. "Poe cleared this section of the base. He didn't want to risk any trouble."

Whether the trouble was expected from his end or from the beings whose hatred radiated through every closed door, Kylo wasn't sure. He nodded. "Or to risk me escaping with possible intel."

"Will you really do that?" Rey asked him.

"Do what?"

"Escape. Once the baby is born."

"Will you miss me?" he asked, the joke slipping from his mouth without a thought.

"Maybe I just think you could be more. Than the kriffing Supreme Leader, or whatever."

She did believe it. He could feel it. There is no more, he wanted to say. The retort died in his throat. "The bond is back," he said instead, and instantly felt a twinge of regret at having voiced the simple fact, exposing it to her reaction. "It seems unreliable, but it's there."

"I know," she said. When he looked at her, she wasn't looking at him. Instead her head was turned away, gazing in the direction of the stone walls as if they held some secrets.

"You could try to use it." He knew the words sounded weak. Hated himself for it, but kept speaking. "If you wanted to connect. To me."

"I won't be doing that," Rey told him, making eye contact with him finally. It was the answer he'd expected. Yet rather than being sharp, her reply had sounded faintly regretful.

They walked in circles for a long time, until one of the guards stepped closer to them and raised her voice.

"We were told no more than an hour," she said, her apologetic tone directed at Rey.

Rey frowned at her, stepping forward. "It hardly matters if he takes an extra few minutes, does it? He's not going anywhere."

Kylo interrupted before the argument could go any further. "No, this has been good. Thank you."

"Oh," she said, turning to him. They stood in silence for a moment. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow, then."

*

Their walks became routine. It was an improvement in his days. But his nights were still restless, and meditation held no relief. He was out of practice, and had been for a long time. His mind stretched out to touch Rey in the Force as he tossed in his bed, the process almost automatic. He had been thinking of her all day.

He could tell that she was asleep, because the wall he encountered when he tried to connect to her through the Force was formless, with no intention behind it. Still it was solid as a durasteel beam when Kylo pushed lightly on it.

Luke Skywalker hadn't taught her to do that, he was certain. Which meant that Rey was still teaching herself, and growing in strength every day.

The thought drove the echo of a thrill through him. The block was still there, yet so was she. The linked cord of their connection was compelling as it always was, her presence demanding his attention even in slumber. He would never mistake her in the Force for anyone else.

Kylo rolled over, his hand lowering unthinkingly to his crotch. He tested the connection again, but nothing had changed. Rey was still asleep, unresponsive.

He wondered what she was dreaming of. The Rebels had stripped his clothes from him, providing him with a handful of simple clothing, so worn that the colour was unidentifiable. They were loose, just as well as his belly continued to swell. Kylo loosened the waist of his pants and slipped his hand inside.

He didn't do this often.

Snoke had never had much to say on the subject of sex. It was a simple human drive, of a category with greed and jealousy. Anger. But Kylo could never shake the feeling that the heir to Darth Vader should be above the petty whims that seemed to drive so much of the mundane backstabbing aboard the Finalizer.

Trust. That was an issue, too. But his body was different, and sensations that seemed laughably unimportant six months ago now seemed urgent.

Desire pooled in his gut. Kylo cupped his hardening cock, rubbed his hand up and down the length. He thought of her, reached again, and--yes. She was still there.

If she woke, just now, while he was arched against the cheap sheets of his cot and thrusting into his own hand, if she seized her end of the link, there would be no mistaking what he was doing.

He imagined her likely disgust, revulsion, and the urgency grew. He was thrusting in earnest now, leaking over his own fingers. His hand gripped tightly, jerked firmly, until the want spilled over the edge. Kylo came, moaning low and alone in the dark.

He rose with a grunt, hitting the buttons that would draw the small refresher unit out of the wall. He washed his hands in the sink, and went back to bed.

The connection seemed to close of its own accord as he drifted to sleep. 

*

They walked as usual the next day, spending much of it in silence. Rey was animated, humming a quick melody under her breath.

"What's that?" Kylo asked, looking at her curiously.

The tune stopped. Rey blushed, embarrassed. "It's nothing. It's something they sing on Jakku."

She seemed braced for his reaction, but Kylo remained quiet.

"It's depressing, really. The words. But…" Rey's thoughts trailed off distractedly into nothing. "Oh! I had a dream last night."

"Did you?" Kylo asked carefully. A noose of panic squeezed his lungs, but Rey's expression was open and unaccusing.

"Yeah. Or a vision? I'm still not sure how to tell one from the other."

"Sometimes it's unclear," he agreed, breath easing. "What were you shown?"

"It was the baby. I couldn't see her, really, but I knew it was her. And she asked me, well. She asked me to teach her."

Kylo nodded. It was nothing the Force hadn't told him, in his own visions.

Rey was staring at him. Her eyes glinted with expectation. "Doesn't that make you, I don't know. Mad?"

"You've asked me not to get mad so often," he reminded her.

She shrugged that off. "But still. The idea of your child learning from a Jedi."

"The Jedi are dead," he said sharply. Luke Skywalker was dead, and the Jedi would not rise again.

"You know what I mean."

"It doesn't upset me. That's why I brought her here."

Rey cast a sceptical eye in the direction of Kylo's belly. "I thought you brought her here because the two of you had nowhere else to go. Your destiny is the dark side. That's what you've kept saying."

"Mine," he agreed. "But not hers."

"And that doesn't make you angry." Her tone was flat, still threaded with disbelief.

"The Jedis of my grandfather's time believed the Force was out of balance. That it could be brought into harmony by the existence of a single user with unprecedented strength." 

Rey took in the lesson, mulling it over. "Is that what you think is happening now?"

"I think if it is happening, my feelings on it may be irrelevant."

Rey nodded, but the answer didn't seem to satisfy her.

"Her connection to the Force is already so strong," he said quietly.

"Yeah, I felt that."

"She swims in the light side of the Force. Sometimes it seems to disrupt my own connection to the dark side." It was an admission of weakness, of not having access to his best weapon when so much was at stake. It left him feeling uncomfortably exposed. It was an offering of sorts. Rey seemed to understand, looking at him carefully.

"That must make you nervous," she said.

"I can fight with or without it."

"Kriff, that's not what I meant. No one is trying to fight you right now." When he said nothing she huffed out a breath in frustration. Shoulders raised, she angled her whole body away from him as they rounded a corner. "For someone whose philosophy is based in feelings, you don't seem to like talking about them very much."

Kylo frowned. He didn't like her words. Didn't like when he couldn't see her face. "Don't imagine that you know a single thing about my philosophy."

"Why not? It's not so complicated. I've seen you fight. Focus on the bad. Cut out the good." She made a fidgeting motion with her hands, and Kylo knew she was thinking of Han Solo. "Hasn't gotten you very far, has it?"

"It's kept me alive," Kylo said through clenched teeth. Fury was a banked, slow-burning ember beneath his rib cage.

Now she turned to look at him. Her eyes were clear and challenging. "Except now you're hiding down here with us."

His hands curled into tight fists. The Force coursed through him. He'd reached for it in his anger, the same automatic process Snoke had trained him in years ago. The dark side flooded through him, so much of it that it was more than he could easily use or hold on to. He felt a rushing in his head, like a ship coming down in a rough landing, and then his connection to the dark side was snipped loose without warning.

Rey was looking at him with worry lines around her mouth. Kylo wasn't sure how long he'd been standing there, staring into the Force. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." He wasn't sure the response was accurate. But it might satisfy her. "If the purpose of these walks is a lecture, I'll stay in my room instead."

"I wasn't lecturing.”

He didn't answer. The grim, dissatisfied silence that fell over them both lasted until he was returned to his cell.

*

Snoke had often asked him how he felt. But it hadn't been said with anything like Rey's genuine concern. As if the answer was actually important, more than a necessary cudgel.

She didn't understand. He focused on that thought. He sat in a meditation pose, cross-legged on the drab stone floor and tugged on the memory of her distaste for everything that he knew. The lack of trust that had caused her to reject him aboard the Supremacy. He tried to bring the dark side to him. Stubborn and slippery, it slipped through his grasp almost every time.

*

The next few mornings were less eventful. Rey had seemingly made up her mind to a truce, keeping her conversation to neutral topics as they shuffled through the hallways.

Just as the routine seemed settle, the next morning brought a surprise. His mother was standing on the threshold of his room when his guards released him for the daily exercise. Kylo froze in the doorway, holding his chin high as his mother gazed at him.

"Where is Rey?" he asked her.

His mother winced. Perhaps the question had felt like a rejection. He couldn't bring himself to feel guilty. "She has duties, Ben. Besides you."

"So you're my babysitter, then." He walked forward. Leia seemed to take the movement as an invitation to walk with him, and by grudging wordless agreement the circuit began.

After a moment, his mother spoke. "You were always a terror. With babysitters."

Kylo swallowed. He thought he remembered that, vaguely. "They were strict. I didn't like it."

"No. I didn't either, when I was young. We have some things in common."

That seemed unlikely. Kylo didn't speak.

"I didn't think I'd be in for doing it again, to be honest with you. Arranging babysitters." She gestured at his stomach. Kylo put a hand protectively just above his pelvis, where the round began.

Leia Organa kept talking to him. "I remember being pregnant with you. It was quite the inconvenience. My ankles swelled up like I'd been bitten by a sand snake. I was hungry almost all the time. There was a terrible little noodle shop on Coruscant, I'm sure it wasn't sanitary. But I--"

Kylo cut her off. "What is the point of this trip down memory lane?"

His mother looked over at him, undeterred, her steps keeping their even rhythm. "Denying where you came from won't change anything, Ben."

It was the opposite of Snoke's advice. But if Snoke's advice hadn't eased his raging conflict that meant that maybe his mother was right. Kylo's fingers dug into the tender stretched skin of his abdomen. The sensation was one of blunt, blissful pain. He didn't let go. "I won't apologise."

"No. You're like your father, that way."

He waited for the expected jolt of anger, but it didn't seem to arrive.

"If it helps," his mother added, so quiet he could hardly make out the syllables, "even if you did, I wouldn't forgive you, Ben."

The admission seemed to put them on more equal ground. Kylo was quiet, his steps echoing besides his mother's light paces.

*

A Jedi is always where he is, and nowhere else. It had been one of Luke Skywalker's first lessons, and one of the many that he'd been unable to find meaning in.

Yet thinking of the past was useless now, and so was dwelling on the future. He could do nothing more until the baby arrived. Kylo sat in his cell, struggling each day to meditate.

*

A few mornings later, the quiet corridor of the base was unusually busy. One Rebel raced by, and then another, barely dodging Kylo's phalanx of guards on their way through.

Kylo raised an inquiring eyebrow at Rey, who looked as confused as he was. "Should we be worried?"

"I don't know. Perhaps it's just a drill."

Dameron was the third to pass through the route at full speed, his flight boots skittering to a stop as he spotted Rey. 

"Command room, right now. We've got company!" he shouted.

Kylo felt a knot of panic. He took a deep breath. The Rebels were unprepared to fight a head-on battle of any serious magnitude. That much was obvious, no matter how they'd tried to hide it from him. He nodded at his guards. "I'll return to my room," he said.

Dameron turned to him. Barely-contained energy at the prospect of a conflict was visible on his face. "No, you too. You might be useful."

"Him?" Rey asked in surprise. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I guess. Come on!" Dameron resumed running, moving away from them and vanishing around the bend with no further explanation.

*

Inside the Rebel command centre, chaos reigned. Kylo entered a room deep inside the base, trailing a handful of steps behind Rey. She was panting from the exertion of the run.

Holodisplays were blinking insistently, in tandem with audible alerts that played in a loop. A small droid squeezed between Rey and Kylo, trilling alarm.

Despite the demands on their attention, all the Rebels in the room looked up as Kylo entered. More than a few were unabashedly studying the round bump he carried, large enough to be evident now. Their bitter distaste hung in the air.

A Rebel who stood beside General Organa, a grey-haired male human, was the first to speak. "Is this wise?"

"It was my call," Dameron said, loudly brushing off the question, his volume aimed at the entire group that had gathered. "Since he's the only reason the First Order didn't just blast this mountain into dust from space, anyway. That might be something we can use."

Behind Kylo, someone muttered something rude. Mentioning his connection to the First Order hadn't helped. Dameron ignored the reaction in the room, and so did Rey, turning to his mother as she took the lead.

"There's a dreadnought in orbit. They've come for him," she said. She was looking at Rey, but she seemed to be speaking directly to Kylo.

"We should hand him over," someone said.

The panic was returning. Kylo reached for the Force, directing the search inside himself, to his swollen belly. The feeling that came back was one of wholeness, and calm.

His mind spun. He should have seen this coming, he thought. But if he was returned to the First Order, to the Knights of Ren, he would simply have to find a way to defend himself. The child complicated matters, as she had when he'd escaped. But it could be done.

Trust in the Force, a quiet voice seemed to say.

Kylo realised that he had missed his mother's reply. A large barrage of counterpoints had begun, but she was shaking her head. He frowned, caught off guard.

"You think they're going to take him and just leave us alone?" Rey asked the room. Her voice quavered with indignance. It was a surprise to him.

His mother raised a hand, quieting the room. "We're not any better than the First Order, if we surrender those who have asked us for sanctuary to their guns, the minute things get difficult." The logic was generous and mercenary all at once, the kind that Leia Organa specialised in. 

"They're the war criminals, not us," Rey agreed.

"Besides, chucking him out there just leaves us sitting here like target practice. We need a plan," Dameron said, cutting the argument off.

Kylo studied the image of the dreadnought, and of the mountain below it, with blinking red lights below that indicated the cluster of Rebels. Perhaps the structure would hold up to warheads. But if the rock was shot to pieces around them, there would be few long-term survivors.

"Retreat would leave us exposed, but it may be our only option," Leia said.

"The tunnels," Rey said, "through the back caves, into the valley. Surely the First Order doesn't have a map of this place. They'll never know we escaped their bombs."

"It's dangerous." His mother's forehead wrinkled as she considered Rey's plan. She drew a finger through the hologram, bringing up an extended section of the map. The underground path must be dozens of miles long, Kylo realised. "But we may have to--"

"General!" a Sullustan shouted to catch her attention, gesturing excitedly to the signal board they were manning. "It's the Dreadnought."

His mother took a deep breath as the room subdued to almost complete stillness. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second before she spoke. "This is General Organa."

"Kylo Ren." The voice that spoke was a human male's. It was clear and undistorted despite the thousands of miles that separated them. Kylo thought he recognised the young, gravelly timbre. "You can no longer hide him from the First Order. Give us Kylo Ren, or we blast you to nothing."

Kylo tilted his head, thinking quickly. As an opening feint, it was nonsense. With no pretense of being open to negotiation, he'd offered no deal the Rebels could easily believe. The base was almost certainly obscured on radar; sending Stormtroopers blindly into a bottleneck would be likely useless. The captain of the dreadnought had opened with a stalemate.

"I'm afraid we can't do that," his mother was saying.

Kylo adjusted his stance, catching Rey's attention. She looked up.

"They sent Naleh." he said. "Alone." He was sure of that. The Force told him with sureness that no more of the Knights of Ren were gathered nearby.

"Who is that?" she whispered back.

"The youngest of us." The knight had been barely a teenager when he'd escaped the burning Jedi buildings. They had not been friends, exactly, but he was the least likely to be able to take Kylo face to face. It meant the other Knights of Ren had expected to be able to draw him out using sentiment. The knowledge tasted bitter. 

"You sound worried about him," Rey said.

He ignored her, still thinking. Sentiment was a weakness that ran in all directions. Over the broadcast receiver, Naleh Ren was shouting another threat.

"Naleh Ren. Have they sent you here to die?" Kylo spoke without permission, without raising his voice. All the eyes and antennae in the room swiveled towards him.

Dameron glowered, but whatever objections he meant to make were stopped short by his mother's raised hand. "Let him try," she murmured.

Naleh Ren made a derisive sound over the channel. "Master Ren. Those are big words, when you hide and make us chase you."

"Do you wonder why?" Kylo asked.

There was a beat of confused silence. "You feared our plans, and you ran. But you belong with the First Order."

"No," Kylo corrected him placidly, "do you wonder why I left? There is more power coming to the Force than either of us can imagine."

"Yes. We feel it. Yet you present it as a gift to the Rebels."

"Watch your tongue!"

Rey's hand, a light touch on his arm, a silent plea for him to be cautious. The other Rebels stirred. He pulled away, as raw rage coursed freely through him. He cradled his belly mindlessly as he spoke, the tenor of his speech vibrating through the room.

"Do you and the Knights think you'd be better stewards? This power lives in me, Naleh. I decide what to do with it."

"Yes, Master Ren." Naleh Ren's mood changed as abruptly as his own, suddenly deferential as if they were in a training room aboard the Finalizer.

Kylo's voice hushed to a confidential murmur. "But we could decide what to do with it, together. The others leave you to run errands like a servant."

Beside him Rey made a difficult, wordless noise.

There was a crackling pause. "That is quite an offer, Master Ren."

"You won't get a better one."

"Perhaps not," Naleh Ren said. His young voice sounded honestly regretful. "But the others have trusted me with this errand, and I'll finish it. You have ten minutes to gather yourself, then we fire until everyone is dead. Save yourself."

The signal disconnected.

"That went well," Dameron said.

His mother shook her head. "Ten minutes is more than we had before. If we begin a retreat--"

Dameron nodded, picking up her train of thought. "We'll need a distraction. A way to buy more time. I can scramble a transport, get them looking in the wrong direction. Gives us a few minutes more."

"Poe," his mother said, and she sounded…sad? As if she was already grieving. He didn't think about it too closely.

Kylo said, "I can buy you more time."

"What--" Dameron started, but Kylo, already in action, didn't hear the rest.

He reached for the Force. He tried to grab the dark side. It slipped through his fingers, and then the light side was there. Then both were in harmony inside him, for the first time in his life that Kylo could remember. Every living thing in the room had its own shape in the Force, and he reached past them all. Reached up.

There was still chatter all around him. He shifted the detritus of sound to the back of his senses, and reached up still. The signature of the dreadnought was unmistakable, even working blind, with so many living beings aboard. Guilt was for the weak, Kylo reminded himself. He could feel the entire dreadnought within his invisible grasp.

He pulled.

Rey cried out. She could sense his work, where the others could not. He couldn't split his focus. He continued to yank on the threads of the ship's presence within the Force, felt it give way.

His knees buckled.

Rey grabbed hold of his hand. "Get me a kriffing chair!" she yelled. She was watching the holodisplay. They all were, as the dreadnought's orbit sank lower. He pulled again, his vision swimming. He felt the child rouse inside him.

Only the weak fail, he thought, and pulled on the battleship as hard as he could, with the last of his strength.

On the holdisplay, the dreadnought distorted into fragments. It had hit the atmosphere. Kylo felt it as all the beings aboard winked out of the Force.

Inside the room, a chorus of distressed gasps reached his ears. Kylo blinked furiously, trying to steady himself as the room spun on its axis around him.

He crumpled to the floor.

*

He didn't know how much time had passed when he woke up in his cell, still woozy. Rey stood on one side of the bed, and Vana on the other. The Twi'lek was glaring at him. 

So was Rey. Her small mouth curlicued into an unhappy expression of disapproval.

"What?" he asked, crabby and hoarse.

"What was that?" the Twi'lek demanded, her lekku twitching in indignance. "I told you the baby needs rest."

The baby. Kylo felt through the Force, and the closest being reached back in return. She was fine. 

"The First Order. Are they gone?" 

Vana rolled her eyes, reaching for a cup of water extended by her droid's thin claws and lifting it towards his mouth. He sipped it slowly.

"Most of the dreadnought came down on the planet's other continent. Some of it burned up in the atmosphere. But there'll be more of them behind it, once they realise they've lost contact."

Kylo nodded. Now that he listened for it, he could hear the steps and chatter of beings working busily, to and fro outside his door. The Rebels must be leaving. He let his head fall back onto his pillow. 

Rey was still studying him with a piercing, accusing glare. "I thought you said you were losing access to the Force."

"I said to the dark side," he snapped. "I was clear."

"You never--"

"Excuse me," Vana said, her musical voice cutting into the argument before it could gather steam. "The general asked me to tend to his injuries quickly, so he could board the transport ASAP."

His arm hurt, Kylo realised. Badly. He moved his head on the pillow, peering at it. "What happened?"

"You crashed into a droid when you fell, and dislocated your arm, you idiot." Rey glowered at him.

"Cut it open, too. Pretty deep. Going to have to set it and stitch it before Med-A-6 runs his healing routines for you," Vana added.

"Leave it," Kylo said. Now that he'd registered his brain's barrage of pain signals, the sensation was flooding him like a familiar friend.

"I will not!" the Twi'lek insisted, as Rey made a horrified sound. "It won't heal right. And the general gave me very clear instructions. But I'm afraid it's going to hurt."

It did hurt, the bones of his shoulder scraping against each other as she wrenched them into place. She'd pulled off the emergency bandage she'd slapped on, and the wound bled on the sheets.

"Sorry! Just one more step left."

"Suffering brings strength," Kylo said, grunting through clenched teeth.

Rey hadn't left his side. She frowned down at him. "What is that?" 

"Something my master used to say."

"Well, it sounds stupid."

"Do you have something better to suggest?"

The question was largely rhetorical, but Rey answered anyway. "Most people distract themselves from pain by thinking about something good. Normal people."

He'd never been normal. Kylo considered this. "Like what?"

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever you consider a good thing. Your favourite place, or person, or--"

"Favourite person," he repeated. Vana pulled on his arm, making him bite down on his lip to contain a low groan. He grabbed Rey's hand without thinking, joining their fingers the way she had done in the command room. The skin of her fingers was warm and calloused.

She'd been right. It was an effective distraction. Rey looked down at their linked hands, but didn't shy away from the unexpected contact.

"Done," Vana chirped. She began to put away her tools. "Med-A-6 can get started healing you now. I'll let the general know that you're going to be fine."

She left. Kylo and Rey were alone.

Minutes passed. The cell door whined mechanically as it opened. A familiar guard was standing there. He made no eye contact with Kylo, directing his words entirely to Rey. "We're ready to load the prisoner, ma'am."

Rey pulled back from his grasp, nodding. "We're ready."

*

He'd never seen the Rebels' flight strip before. It was cavernous. The doors leading directly out of the side of the mountain they sheltered in was wide open, letting in rays of weak light. 

He was led to a transport ship, similar to the one he'd boarded to come here. He couldn't help looking, but if the Millenium Falcon had been here, it was gone now. Escort ships were already taking off, the force of their liftoff blowing debris across the ground.

There were already a couple of dozen beings onboard his designated transport, crammed in with the belongings and equipment they'd been able to load in the small amount of time. All the beings were eyeing Kylo with wary distrust as he ascended the gangplank. Their fear hung ripely in the air.

"Sit," one of his guards said, but there'd been no attempt to sedate or restrain him. Vana's work, Kylo suspected. The Twi'lek ran up the boarding ramp with a heavy pack on her back, and her droid in tow. She was the last to board.

"Okay, ready for takeoff!" their pilot shouted. He punched his controls.

The ship shuddered violently as it lifted off the ground. The engines roared, accompanied by a high-pitched whine. Some of the non-humans winced in reaction.

"Stop!" Rey shouted, shooting up out of her seat in alarm. "Something's wrong."

The pilot studied his panels, then shook his head. "Everything's fine. This bucket dates back to the end of the Clone Wars. Something's always rattling, but she flies fine."

"No! That sound is air escaping one of the intake chambers. We won't breach the atmosphere in this condition." Rey spoke almost too fast to be understood. She was already jumping into action, throwing up the hatch in the rusted floor, ready to slip down into the engine access. 

"We don't have time! The First Order could be here at any moment!" the co-pilot shouted at her.

The cabin had fallen silent. No one else voiced an opinion.

Rey's eyes shone with certainty. Kylo thought he recognised that particular gleam. He stood, ignoring the blaster nozzles that swung in his direction and the weakness that still wobbled his legs. "It'll go faster with an extra pair of hands. Or one extra," he amended, shrugging at his injured side.

Rey stared at him in surprise. "You know how to reset an ion drive intake chamber?"

He simply nodded. The obvious explanation--that Han Solo had taught him, when he'd been very young--seemed redundant.

"Very well. He's with me." Rey glared at each of his guards in turn, and charged down into the guts of the ship.

*

Underneath the cabin floor they were both hidden from the view of the others. Rey found the culprit quickly, reaching for a tool that hung on the wall, beginning to untwist the joints of the mechanism one by one.

"Try the other side," she directed him, and he did, working as fast as he could. The sounds of their work rang in tandem for a moment, until Rey pressed the open cases closed again. She nodded, satisfied.

"Go!" she shouted through the open hatch, and the cry was repeated inside the cabin above them. The engine raised to a deafening noise as they finally lifted off, through the atmosphere and into space.

Rey laughed, light and victorious. The motion of the ship in flight swayed her towards him. He looked at her, and she stared back, unabashed.

"Does that happen to you a lot?" he asked her.

"Does what happen a lot?" 

“Urgent messages. From the Force."

Her nose screwed up into a small mark of confusion. "That wasn't a message. I just heard the noise, and I knew something was wrong."

"Hmmn," was all he he said.

"Well, what about you? You used the light side, before. With the dreadnought. That just proves..." her words trailed off, as if she'd thought better of them.

"Proves what?" he asked her. The words were a deprecating rumble from deep in his throat, a near-whisper.

"That you don't need the dark side."

It was an inane suggestion. The dark side was in everything.

He kissed her.

Her mouth was soft, yielding under his for just a moment before she pulled back, her eyes open wide in dismay. "What are you doing?" She sounded as if she'd been insulted.

Kylo raised his eyebrows at her. 

"No, not that. I mean, why?"

He wasn't sure what she was asking. He didn't have words for the emotions that rippled through him when she displayed her power, when she lectured him on things she only barely understood. "Because I wanted to. I wanted to kiss you, so I did it."

The wrench she'd just used to repair the ship's engine lifted off of the engine room floor and smacked him vigorously on the side of his uninjured arm. Released from Rey's grasp on the Force, it clattered uselessly back to the ground.

Rey shook her head. "That's not how this works. And we are going to to talk about--"

"Hey, you two!" A human Rebel poked his head through the open engine room hatch. Rey jumped backwards, putting a wide gap between them. "Captain says get up here and strap in. Trip's about to get a little bumpy."

Rey climbed up the short ladder ahead of him without a word.

*

He didn't know where they were when they landed, and no one would have told him if he'd asked. They landed on rocky, uneven land, a blast of hot, wet and sticky weather hit him the moment Kylo descended from the spaceship. His boots gripped the damp, muddy ground, leaving tracks with every step.

The ships were landing one by one. They clustered on the outskirts of an abandoned village, where one path, overgrown with marshy grasses, led up to a grouping of houses that looked as if they'd been abandoned to the weather for months or years.

His own shelter was a tiny square frame, a single room at the edge of the camp. There was a bed, and a simple holoplayer underneath. He cycled aimlessly through the loaded vids, but none were in Basic, or any language he'd heard before. He wondered how far from the Core they'd traveled. His shelter backed out onto a thickly wooded area, crested with wide, gnarled trees. It would have been easy enough to escape.

For the moment he had nowhere else to go.

*

"It wasn't me."

His mother glanced up at him. After the initial chaos of landing, his daily exercise routine had begun again. Today she walked with him around the edges of the camp, avoiding the busiest parts in its centre.

"The dreadnought. It wasn't me. They were looking for me," and it was, in that sense, his fault. "But I didn't alert them."

His mother nodded agreement, her braid bobbing gently across her back. "Yes. We think we know the source. How could it have been you? You've been well-guarded."

He gestured to the Rebels around him. None of them were looking in his direction. He could feel their terror, a bleeding gash as fresh when he'd arrived. "They think I did. Everyone's afraid."

He was used to being feared. Yet he found himself frustrated by it at the same time. 

"That isn't new. You've done a lot for them to fear," his mother said to him gently. "Including bring a ship down from space."

“Only some of that was me," Kylo said. There was a ripple in the Force from within his belly, as if to underscore his point. His mother smiled a distant fondness in the direction of his stomach, as if she felt it too.

"Still."

A toad croaked, unseen in a tall tree as they walked by. They reached the invisible boundary of his prison, and turned, marking out a circle that led back towards his cell. "The people that lived here. Where did they go?" He wasn't sure why he'd asked, or if he really cared to hear the answer.

His mother considered her words for a moment. "They were removed to the capital. It's not clear what happened to them after that."

"The entire village?" He looked at the small row of houses at the end of his path. He'd ordered the destruction of a dozen of villages like this one. He didn't know why this one felt different.

"Yes. They were suspected of giving aid to the Rebels. The local government wanted to appear loyal to the First Order."

"Were they?" he asked. "Loyal."

"Fear is not loyalty, Ben."

He shook his head in a non-answer, considering the abandoned village and the Rebel ships on its horizon. She shouldn't be telling him this. No matter what assurances she thought he'd given, it would be easy to track down the planet that matched these details, once he was reunited with the First Order.

Perhaps she was still contemplating his eventual execution. Ire gurgled weakly inside him and fizzled out.

Perhaps she didn't think he'd leave. That was worse, somehow, as if she thought he'd already folded himself into the life of the dead Ben Solo without a word of complaint.

Ben Solo was still dead and buried. That couldn't change.

*

Rey seemed to be avoiding him. He could sense her in the Force, follow what was left of their waning connection to know that she was nearby. For the next few mornings he walked the perimeter with no company but his guard, dodging the perpetual commotion of work outside the shelters. Rebels moved to and fro, shifting their supplies and equipment into place. Sweat dripped from the brows of most of the humans present as they worked under an orange sun half-hidden by haze. 

*

Dameron entered his cell one afternoon, catching him by surprise. He'd been meditating. The child had begun to move in him, and each of her shifts had reminded him that his body was distinctly not designed for this. His ribs ached.

Snoke's instruction had mainly been in using it to bring one's pain into focus. When it came to meditating in the Force in order to wash away his discomforts, Kylo found he was out of practice.

His interrogation sessions had slowed to a trickle, then stopped all together. Whatever information about the First Order he might have had, it was now weeks out of date. He hadn't spoken to Dameron since their escape from the underground base.

He stopped inside the hut, warily watching Kylo who sat shirtless in the centre of the floor. "Oh. You're busy."

"I'm not." Kylo unfolded his legs and stood, a slower task than it might usually have been. The balloon of his belly disturbed his sense of gravity, made his reflexes feel sluggish. The weather on this nameless planet wasn't helping. He felt the dampness of sweat along his back.

Dameron was still staring at his stomach, as if eyeing a toorga in a zoo. "Come on, I've got a job for you."

He'd been expecting a fresh wave of irritating questions instead. Kylo stared back, but the commander's rudeness wasn't deterred. "What kind of job?" he asked.

Dameron grunted, his impatience rising. "The kind that'll get you out of this room for the afternoon, but you're welcome to keep staring at the walls if you want. Look, do you wanna put on a shirt first?"

Kylo looked down at his protruding stomach. "None of the shirts I was given still fit," he said.

"Kriffing hell. I'll get someone to work on that, but just grab what you can, for now. We're going over to the landing strip. The entire camp's getting an eyeful if you don't get dressed."

His first instinct was to be stubborn. But he was curious. He tugged a piece of clothing as far over his torso as he could manage, and followed Dameron through the camp.

They left the patch of buildings and wove through a forest of landed craft. Dameron stopped in front of a old converted ship, its landing tail lifted high, a peak over the mechanical landscape. "You know what this is?" Dameron asked him.

"Yeah," Dameron continued when Kylo didn't say anything, "a scout vessel. A-27, from the first years of the New Republic. They make 'em a little faster now, but for the weight you can't beat the armaments on this baby."

Kylo finally responded to this aviation lesson. "It looks like it crashed."

"More of a miscalculated landing, but yeah, could have been smoother. The pilot had some problems with the sublight controls. That's why you're here." He banged suddenly on the chassis. "Rey! Brought you some help."

Rey's face emerged from a panel in the ship's undercarriage. Kylo held himself carefully to hide his reaction. Rey's was written all over her face, as it always was. Her hair had fallen loose, and her clothes were streaked with engine grease. "Kylo Ren," she said, voice flat. She looked questioningly at Dameron.

"I heard he was helpful on the way here. There's a lot of work to do around here. You were the one who said we should let him out more often."

Kylo waited for Rey to deny the point. She simply nodded, wiping her hands on her thighs and leaving streaks. "Fine."

Dameron studied them both for a moment, as if considering the potential pitfalls of his plan for the first time. Finally, he shrugged. "Don't kill each other," was all he said, before disappearing up the side of the ship and back down the port side with the familiar BB unit at his heels.

His guards hadn't tagged along. Perhaps Dameron had dispatched them to a different task. Perhaps he thought Rey alone was all the defense he'd need. Her lightsaber dangled from her waist, as usual.

"Where do you want me," he said, when the silence had stretched too long.

"There's a problem with the coolant system," she said. Waiting, expectantly. "Start with that."

Kylo climbed into the ship. He found the damaged coolant system, and began to take it apart to see what could be repaired. He could hear Rey hammering something in another part of the ship. After some time had passed she came to join him, sitting on the floor to inspect his work.

"Is this really what they have you doing?" he asked her. It was much because he was curious as to observe the satisfying flush of irritation that crept up her skin in reaction. "You're a…" he strung out the sound in reluctance. Finished the question. "Jedi."

"It needs doing. Fancy titles don't mean all that much around here." 

Her words were a pointed jab in his direction. She reached for a part, and began to hammer at it where it was bent with small, fierce jabs.

"You're avoiding me." It didn't come out as angry as he'd meant it to.

He couldn't help staring at her, but she didn't look back at him. "I thought it would be better. At least for now. Until you're less confused."

"No. That's you," he said in a low voice.

She flushed again. "I'm not confused. Stop that. Stop reading me."

"I can't help it if you make it easy," he said. He could feel her distress in the Force, brushing against his mind easily now that he was so near to her. He dropped the subject.

*

To his surprise Kylo found the work a not-unpleasant distraction. It helped that Rey seemed to have been given the task of supervising him. She was there every day, and the sound of her instructions didn't irritate him, the way it had been with all his masters before.

"Can you scoot under here for a moment? I need someone to hold this light."

He dropped the cabling that he'd been rifling through, eyes measuring the unlikely small space that she was crammed into.

When he didn't move further, Rey popped out, sitting up and glaring at him. "For kriff's sake," she said. Her eyes caught sight of his belly, and her outrage came to an abrupt halt. She looked back at the low, dark space she'd been working in. Then back at him.

Kylo looked at her.

"You might not fit in there," she admitted, apologetic.

"No."

She stared at him for a few more moments. He stood still, content as her eyes drank him in. "Does it hurt?" she asked. As he opened his mouth, she added, "If you say suffering is strength, I'm going to throw this screwdriver at you."

Kylo was quiet.

Rey sighed. She got up. He could feel her stretching her senses in the Force as she did so. Bridging their connection.

She stepped close enough to put her hand on his stomach. He'd felt a wisp of her intention before she did it, yet it still surprised him. "I've been practicing healing. Little things. I'm not very good at it."

Kylo blinked at the unexpected offer of information. He didn't object to carrying his pain with him, except in that as long as his access to the dark side was blocked, it only managed to be a distraction. 

She had so much power, he thought, most of it still untapped.

He was curious. "Let me see," he said, low and fierce.

She nodded, pressing her the pads of all five of the fingers on her right hand against his side. He didn't pull away. He could hear her taking a deep breath. Again, she reached into the Force.

His skin was warm. So was his flesh, and his bones, all of the centre of his body suddenly heated as if in the glow of a fire. Rey's brow furrowed. The aches in his back and hips faded. They were so close. He wanted to kiss her again.

The moment was interrupted. The baby moved, landing a solid kick in the vicinity of where Rey's hand sat. Rey laughed in surprise, her eyes alight. "Did you feel that? Well, sorry. Of course you did."

"I'm getting familiar with the feeling," Kylo said.

"I suppose you'd have to. Hello, little one! Can you hear me?"

Her neck was bent towards him as she shouted at his abdomen. She seemed to consider the ridiculousness of her position, stopping abruptly. She pulled away. "Sorry," she said.

He shrugged. "If you want to communicate with the child, you have better tools."

"Oh! I do." Rey fell silent, beginning to concentrate. She didn't replace her hand, but the warmth seemed to spread again. Perhaps it was an illusion. He could feel the child's reaction, her own unsettled movement in the Force as she reached out to the greeting.

She stepped back, nodding.

"Well?" Kylo asked.

"We talked about you," Rey said, chuckling. Something in his face seemed to set her off, the peals of giggles coming faster. "Well, you'd better get used to it."

*

Vana came to visit him every few days. She tracked the baby's progress, and she squealed happily over the results.

"She's going to be a big one, you'll see. Like her dad."

In six weeks or perhaps fewer, the child would be born. This could not last forever, but Kylo found that for once, his mind wasn't racing over the pitfalls of the future or the frustrations of the past. 

*

"You're in a good mood," his mother said one morning.

He frowned at her. They walked side by side, and he shortened each of his strides to match her pace. "I'm not."

"You are," she repeated. She breathed quietly for a moment, staring at him as if she was deciding what to say next. "I was angry, much of the time when I was pregnant with you. The doctors said it was hormones."

The past. She kept bringing it up. Remembering those distant days had long been of no use to him.

With her usual careful diction, Leia Organa continued speaking. "They'd say that about you too, I imagine. But the truth is more complicated, isn't it? Once you know the Force."

"Get to the point." He could tell that she had one, circling lazily around it like a practiced predator.

"Very well," she said. "The old Jedi said that anger and pain led to the dark side. Did you ever think about whether that path runs both ways?"

The ancient Jedi truisms about the nature of the dark side were little more than shallow fear-mongering. That had been one of Snoke's first lessons. Kylo shook his head. Leia Organa was undeterred.

"You've said the child is cutting you off from the dark side. If that's true, then perhaps she's opening you up to other things. Don't you think?" His mother's clear gaze pinned him, searching his face for his reaction.

He didn't have a counterargument ready, and so he didn't answer. There can be no room in one's heart for doubt; that had been another of Snoke's teachings, and the constant source of his failure. He turned the thought over in his mind.

His mother continued as if oblivious to his inner turmoil, though he was certain she wasn't. "If that's the case, then you also have to consider what it might be like when she's no longer inside you."

"Perhaps the effects will remain." Too late, Kylo understood what he'd admitted without meaning to.

"Do you want them to?" his mother asked. Her tone was kind. He didn't know how to respond.

Mercifully her questions were interrupted as a Rebel appeared in their path. "General Leia," she said, then broke off, looking at Kylo.

"I'll be there," his mother said. The Rebel nodded once, and left.

"Go," he said.

"Okay. I'll see you again."

She always said goodbye that way. Certain, without being a promise.

Kylo rubbed his belly. He stood for a moment, under a groaning green tree that dropped yesterday's flowers in his path, and considered for the first time whether the Force had given him a new answer to an old question. And if so, what he was expected to do with it.

*

He was stretched out on his bed, his shirt pushed up, bunched underneath his arms. The Medical Assistant droid hovered by Kylo's abdomen, taking readings. Vana watched the readouts carefully, chatting pleasantly as she did so. Eight months ago, he knew, he would have been irritated. Now it was oddly reassuring.

"We're getting there," she said. "Have you thought of a name?"

He said nothing.

"You don't have to tell me. I know on some planets it's bad luck--"

"I don't have one."

Vana's mouth twitched in disapproval. "Well, we can't just call her Baby Solo her whole life. Or Baby Ren?"

"Solo. Ren is a title. She would need to earn it." Something he somehow knew she would never do. "The Force will show me something. When it's time."

"Yeah, okay. I'm not close-minded or anything?" Vana's gaze shuffled back down to the droid for a moment, as she contemplated the puzzle of incomprehensible alien practices. "But I don't really know what that means." 

*

Inside the scout ship, they broke daily for lunch. Kylo watched Rey impatiently breaking her bread into pieces, chewing as fast as she could.

She looked up. "What?" she demanded.

"I need a name," he said. He hadn't considered the issue until Vana had brought it up, but now the question itched at him.

She nodded, not needing to ask him to explain. "Did you ask your mom what she thinks?"

Panic was no longer his first reaction when others mentioned his mother, but it was close. Kylo wrapped his thoughts around the child, steadying himself. "I did not."

Rey rolled her eyes, looking unimpressed by his reticence. "I'm sure she'd have ideas. Maybe something that honours your family."

His family. It was clearly a terrible idea, and immediately she seemed to interpret that thought from him. She put down the cup in her hand, sweeping her fingers through the air as if to wave away his reaction.

"Let me guess," she said. "Let the past die?"

He wasn't sure he liked the way his old mantra sounded on her lips. His mouth pursed, unhappy. "I didn't say that."

"You wanted to," she said. Mirth wrinkled the smooth skin around her eyes into lines. He found he couldn't be angry at the effortless way that she'd read him. No one else had ever been able to do so with such ease.

Rey's thoughts were still turning on the topic he'd given her. She dragged her spoon through her dessert, the creamy innards of an Outer Rim fruit. The scent of sugar reached his nose.

"There weren't a lot of human babies on Jakku," she said.

"You were alone," he answered. _Just like I was_.

She glared at him. Either his face or the link was once again giving away his thoughts to her, and he didn't know which. She tapped her spoon against the now-hollow gourd of the fruit, frowning. She continued as if he hadn't spoken. "I knew some Teedo children, but they didn't really have individual names as far as I could tell. Perhaps the Force will show you a name," she said hopefully.

Kylo nodded. "That's what I said."

He was uncertain about what he did next, but he knew she'd just given him the gift of a story from her past. Perhaps the distance had been breached. Perhaps their connection was as strong now as it might ever be. Kylo took a breath, and opened himself to the Force.

He could sense everything, and above all Rey, her being glittering in it, attracting all of his attention. Her defenses were still up. He wouldn't prod them, but certain sensations were clear.

"Stop that," she snapped. He dropped the thread of connection.

"I think I've figured it out," he said.

"Figured out what?" she demanded. Her eyes were stormy, challenging him.

"What you're afraid of."

"What? I'm not."

He didn't believe her. Kylo shook his head. "It's okay to be afraid of things. Fear is a tool. All that matters is what you do with it."

"I don't want any of your dark side philosophy," Rey said, fidgeting in discomfort at his words.

He ignored her comment. "My connection to the dark side remains weak, for now. But you're afraid that won't last. You're afraid of trusting anything I say or do, while she's inside me."

"Can you blame me? You show up with that, and you're all different." Rey gestured to his stomach. "Only a complete jerk would take advantage of that."

His eyebrows shot up. She was always so surprising. "Advantage," he repeated dimly. "Of me."

"Yes, of you! I think you're cut off from the dark side, and you're feeling things you don't usually feel. For everything, but especially..." She breathed out, seemingly reluctant to say the rest. "…for me."

"I told you what I felt for you. Aboard the Supremacy." He remembered the thrill of knowing she'd come to him. The rush of disappointment when she said no.

She flushed. "There was a lot happening. It didn't count."

"You'll let me know when my feelings do count, I assume."

She said nothing, squirming as he looked at her.

Kylo continued. "Maybe you'd just like me to say it again. I thought you were strong, and surprising. I thought we could rule the galaxy together. I still do," he added. 

There seemed no point in being dishonest now. Rey didn't react. Perhaps she'd known.

"I wanted to kiss you. From the beginning. And I thought you were scared of me, scared of your own power, of being hurt. But you still worry for me." He hadn't understood it, in the throne room. He still didn't.

"Don't say you can't be hurt." Rey's words snapped in his direction like a whip crack.

"I won't."

She lunged across the gap cluttered by the remains of their meal, and kissed him. Their cups and dishes scattered. Instinctively he wrapped one hand around her waist and braced another against the floor to keep them both from tumbling over.

"Oh." She pulled back after a moment, staring at him, eyes open wide and slightly dazed. She kissed him again. He kissed her back with hunger, their mouths opening against each other as they met.

There was a banging sound behind him. Rey sprang backwards. Kylo's head spun in the direction of the sound. Dameron was standing in the entrance to the scout ship. Kylo couldn't read the man's reaction, as Dameron focused all his attention on Rey.

"Playpen time is over for the day. General needs to see you." After an indecisive pause, he added, "You okay?"

"Yes? Why wouldn't I be?" Rey stood, gathering up the remains of their lunch.

Dameron didn't answer that for a moment, frowning. "No reason. I've gotta take him back to his cell. I'll meet you in the command centre."

Kylo hadn't moved. He stood now, as Dameron pointed at him. Rey had simply nodded, glancing in his direction and away again. She didn't speak, but he could still feel the echoes of her in the Force when they'd kissed.

*

When the time came, there wasn't any pain. Just a ripple of knowledge from the Force. Kylo Ren awoke from sleep, sitting straight up in bed, and knew just as he'd been certain that he would.

There was banging on his door. It opened, and Rey was outside with Vana and her meddroid in tow.

"I saw," Rey said. She was breathless in the night heat.

He let the women pass into his room, expressions of concern on their faces. Med-A-6 rolled up to his feet, and began to scan him without being prompted. The sensation was more insistent now. "She's ready," he said.

Vana nodded. She'd been fretting over his measurements and readings for the last few days, but willing to trust his instincts. "Just let me get things in order."

"Have you done this before?" Rey asked suddenly. "That is, well. You know."

"Cut a baby out of a person?" Vana asked. She was working as she talked, briskly spreading sterile cloths over his bed and unpacking her instruments. "No. I mean, this isn't what I did before joining the Rebellion. But I've been watching some holovids on the subject. It's not going to be exactly the same, but I think I get the idea. Besides, this one keeps telling me the Force is with him, or whatever."

Vana spoke of the Force with the same disdainful lack of understanding she always had. He might have scowled at her, if he hadn't been distracted. "With both of us," he said. His hand curved around his left side as the child moved fitfully within him.

Rey nodded, looking over at him. "Do you want me to leave?" she asked him.

His answer was quick. "No. What was it you said before? Distraction." 

"Okay." She paused. "Your mother's outside."

"I know." He could feel her presence, hovering. Worried?

He couldn't think about that now. Rey's concerned eyes were still trained on him. She hovered just by his side, ignoring the irritated beeps of the droid as it swerved around her. He lay on the bed, letting Vana adjust her blankets around him. 

"This shot should work pretty fast. You're going to get a little numb," Vana informed him. 

"I'll be here," Rey said. 

*

The baby was tiny. She was healthy, her pale, unfocused blue eyes blinking up at him every time that he held her.

Med-A-6 brought him warm milk in bottles every two hours, holding them out insistently in one claw until Kylo took them. The child was quiet. She fed happily, her small mouth knotted determinedly around the nipple of the bottle.

He could still feel her in the Force. It wasn't the same as it had been.

Rey came to see him. So did his mother, and an unexpected parade of Rebels, making ridiculous cooing noises. 

They still hadn't come up with a name. When the girl was seven days old, Rey was absent for a day and a half. He knew before asking that she'd been sent on a mission, but no one would tell him where she'd gone. He resisted the urge to see if he could gain some control of the bond and speak to her. Without knowing where she was or what she was doing, he could easily plunge her into inadvertent danger.

He missed Rey. There was no other word for it. His old friend, anger, swirled restlessly within him. He knew he should be able to summon the dark side, now.

For now he was afraid to try, and the fear made it worse. The girl, sleepily cheerful since she'd been born, began to bawl, screaming tears that came on with no warning. Her face turned red with the effort, crumpling as she screamed.

"Kriff." Kylo picked her up from her bassinet, awkwardly rubbing soothing circles on her tiny back. "That isn't you. It's me."

It was the most apology he could manage. He breathed out. Breathed in again, half falling into a state of meditation as he stood with his child held against his chest. Bit by bit, the girl began to quiet.

"Good," he whispered, wiping the traces of tears from her cheeks. Trying to hold on to the feeling of being centred. He'd need it for a little while longer.

*

The Twi'lek had come into his room without announcing herself. She was crouched over the baby's bassinet, a repurposed crate, speaking gently in a Twi'leki dialect.

Kylo blinked, watching as she picked the child up and wrapped in it her arms. "Tell your dad you're gonna miss him," she said. "Yes, you will."

"Where are you taking her?" His voice came out rough and vicious. 

Vana jumped, her lekku moving. "Rey asked me to babysit."

"She didn't tell me."

The lekku swayed in a shrug. "Then I ruined the surprise. But she'll be here soon, and you can ask her."

He still didn't like it. The child was happy, gurgling wordlessly in Vana's arms, and so he watched her gather up Vana's makeshift bedding.

He was no good at waiting, but the idea of Rey having a surprise for him intrigued him. She showed up at his door a little while later. The sun had set. She held a covered crate in her arms, dropping it onto the floor as soon as she entered.

"Vana said you were mad," she said, sounding amused.

"No," he said, because he'd been controlling his anger as much as he could. "You're back."

"Yeah. Sorry. It was an unexpected mission, but I--"

"Don't tell me," he said, interrupting her.

Rey looked him. He stared back at her, and their silence was thick and heavy, both of them reluctant to speak. "Because you're going back to them," she said, words cutting like an accusation.

Kylo was quiet. 

"You don't have to."

"They'll never stop looking for her if I don't return."

"That's a reason to stay, isn't it? To protect her. We can help."

His voice was tight when he spoke again. Did she think he wanted to leave her? "You can barely protect yourselves."

Her nose wrinkled with distaste. "Fear."

The path to the dark side. She was right, but for once the fear was for something other than himself. He thought of his father, and how he'd come to meet him on Starkiller Base. Han Solo never considered the odds. But perhaps he'd known the risks.

"It doesn't matter if you go back. Won't they still want to find her? She'll be strong."

Kylo had had that power inside him. And if he had to face all the remaining knights, the echoes of it would still prop his own strength. "I'll tell them she died. That it's the reason for my return."

"They'll never believe that," Rey insisted.

"You overestimate whether others can read me as easily as you do. Besides, they'll want to believe it."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because they all crave order. This is messy." As Rey considered his words, he spoke again. "You'll have to do your own part. Keep her out of sight. Until she's ready."

Rey began to speak, then stopped, tripping over her tongue as she visibly shifted directions. "Kriff, I didn't come here to argue with you."

It was an echo of his words when he'd arrived among the Rebels. "Why did you come here?"

Now Rey shifted in place, looking unexpectedly embarrassed. "It's your last night, isn't it? I thought, well, we could share a meal together."

His last meal. The gesture seemed appropriate for his imminent return to the dark decks of the Finalizer. "What have you brought?" he asked her, glancing at the carton she'd brought with her.

"The same things we've been eating, honestly. There wasn't much." Rey shrugged, then brightened. She stooped and pulled out a dark glass bottle. "But I found this. Corellian wine."

He looked at her, amused. He took the bottle. "Have you ever had Corellian wine?"

"No. Is it terrible?"

"It's fine. But this isn't the night to drink it for the first time, I don't think." Selfishly, he wanted her sober and present with him. He put the bottle down. "Are you actually hungry?"

"Not really," she said after a moment.

He held out his hand. She took it, stepping closer to him. He joined their other hands too, wrapping his fingers around hers. He bent his neck to kiss her. She was already shivering slightly with the anticipation of this moment, and the emotion that filtered into him through the Force when their mouths met flooded his mind. 

She was nervous. And eager. He didn't need to seek her thoughts to know that, as she leaned up to kiss him, her open mouth greedily pressing against his. He let go of her hands, shifting his grasp around her waist, easily lifting her off the ground to close the distance between their heights. She laughed, her legs wrapping around his. He kissed her again and tugged her down onto the bed. 

He lay flat on his back, Rey comfortably on top of him. They stayed like that a long time. Kissing, basking in the warmth of each other's bodies.

He ran his fingers up and down her arms, resting to cradle her neck as he kissed her again. He could feel it again. Nervousness, not quite distress. "I haven't done this in a long time." And never with anyone that mattered. It was an awkward attempt to reassure her.

"I've never, really. On Jakku there wasn't exactly anyone I was interested in." She didn't seem embarrassed. Her brows drew together, peering at him. "Is it a problem?"

Her hand came free of his torso to smack him full in the chest. "Stop it. I can tell what you're thinking."

He kissed her again, lips gently brushing the side of her mouth. "Hmmn. What am I thinking?"

"You're plotting revenge on men that don't even exist yet. Stop."

That made him pause, staring at her. "If you're uncomfortable with how I think of you, we should stop." His words came out in a whisper.

"How you think of me?" she repeated.

"As mine," he said simply.

Her glazed eyes seemed to come into focus for a moment, though her face was still tinted pink, her breathing still quickened. "Since the Supremacy, you said."

"Yes."

"And when you go back to the fleet, you'll still think about me?"

"Constantly," he said. Realising too late the trap she had him in. 

"When you touch the dark side. When you wield pain and death. You'll think about me."

"Rey," he said desperately. "Rey. Yes."

"Then you're mine, too. Aren't you?" 

Kylo groaned. His hands shifted down to cup her rear, bringing their pelvises in full contact, barely managing to stifle the urge to grind against her.

"Say it," she murmured against his neck. Her lips dragged over his scar. The sensation was numb and full all at once.

"Yours," he whispered back.

"And you'll remember it's not the only way. When you think of me," she finished quietly. 

"Yes," he promised. Across the light years of distance she would be as inescapable as ever, and the knowledge made his blood thrum hotly. His fingers tangled in their fastenings as he yanked away her clothing, then his own. He needed her now. His hands ran over her hot, bare skin, touching her everywhere. Rey touched him back, warm, curious hands reaching down. She straddled him, her hands grabbing at his hips. He slid into her as slowly as he could manage, finding her wet and open.

He reached into the Force as he thrust into her, wanting to see her in all the ways that he could. He felt as if he was on fire, and so close. She moaned, squeezing tight around him in response, gasping needily she felt their connection alight. 

"Ben," she whispered desperately. Suddenly she was shaking, swallowing muffled shouts in her throat. His hands tightened around her, holding her steady as she collapsed against him, her whole body still quivering. He gasped, unable to tear his eyes from her. A wave of sparking tension crashed over him and released.

*

They lay next to each other afterwards. Kylo rubbed his fingers between her legs, feeling his own stickiness there.

"I think we forgot something," he said as the thought struck him.

Rey rolled her eyes. "No, you forgot something. Vana gave me a shot this morning. One newborn is enough, I think."

She'd prepared for him. The idea pleased him. They ate their dinner together, half-clothed and in bed. Kylo rested his back against the wall, letting Rey curl herself against him. She was warm, chest rising and falling steadily in his arms. It was a long time before Kylo spoke into the silence.

"We won't ever be completely separated, you know."

"I know." Rey blinked up at him, her eyes still slightly sex-dazed. "What about the baby? Could you have a bond with her that reaches so far?"

"I could. It's too soon to tell." He wasn't sure if he hoped for it or not.

"What if the next time we met, it was on a battlefield? Far from here."

It didn't sound like a question. He looked at her intently. "Have you seen this?"

"Maybe." It came out like a confession, said against the expanse of his bare chest.

He swallowed hard as he felt fear closing his airways. Imagined fighting her again after everything that had happened. "If that happens, you must not weaken yourself for me."

"Idiot," she muttered fondly. She shifted position, and his hands curled around her thighs in their embrace. "It didn't show me the whole thing. Maybe we'll be opponents, but maybe we won't. No matter what the Force tries to tell me, the future isn't fixed."

Kylo's mouth curled up in distaste. "A Jedi teaching."

"Yes. But you can't really argue their logic, there."

He didn't want to talk about the Jedi, or what might be waiting in their future. He kissed her.

*

They made love again, then Rey dozed on and off in his arms. In the darkest part of the night, Kylo raised his head, leaning over Rey and kissing her on the curve of her jaw. Her eyes opened sleepily, slow to focus on him.

He ran a hand along her back as he spoke. "Rey. Where is my lightsaber?"

*

They dressed in a hurry. In the darkness, she led him through the Rebel camp to a small hut at its centre.

His mother was inside, sitting a chair and holding his child in her arms.

He stopped just inside the entrance, looking at her silently.

Leia stood. She smiled a little, kissing the head of the child cradled in her arms. "You were hoping to leave without having this conversation, I know. No one's going to stop you from leaving, Ben. I'm glad you came to us."

"Are you?" 

The challenge had escaped his mouth without thinking. His mother's answer was mild. She shrugged a shoulder, indicating the child. "I am. And so is she. She really does need a name, by the way."

"She has a name. Calina Solo," Kylo answered. His mother extended her hands, and Calina babbled unhappily at the loss of human contact, then quieted again, recognising the familiar being as Kylo shifted his hands to cradle her close to him.

"That's pretty. Where did it come from?" his mother asked him.

"Nowhere. It means nothing." Just a name. Not an anchor. 

His mother nodded. Calina hiccuped, then blinked in surprise.

She wouldn't remember him. Kylo tamped down on his emotions before they could reach her, lifting her to the crook of his neck. Rey and his mother remained just a few steps away, both of them pretending not to listen. "I'll do my best for you," he whispered to her fragile, swaddled frame. "But you're strong. You'll be fine without me." That much he had seen, was certain of. 

"May the Force always be with you," he said quietly. He handed Calina back to his mother, who took her from him without a word.

*

They said goodbye in the landing field. The moon was setting, slowly sinking into the horizon. Rey held out her hand to him. Her fingers were cupped around the glinting silver of his lightsaber. His hand closed over hers as he took it from her.

Rey motioned to the small ship behind her. "Control is programmed to the droid, at least for the first couple of hyperspace jumps. You won't be able to access the coordinates."

Kylo nodded. The precaution was weak, but perhaps the Rebel camp was already planning their next move. He wouldn't ask.

"Dream of me." His words sounded like a plea, and Rey smiled.

"I can hardly do anything else, can I? When the Force won't leave us alone."

"It won't," he agreed. He kissed her. Rey sighed against his mouth, as if she was already missing him.

As the ship took off Kylo averted his gaze from the ground, and kept his eyes trained on the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm dirty_diana on dreamwidth or sweeter_than on tumblr; stop by, say hi.


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